Uncovering Purpose | Part 2 of What Makes a Workshop a Workshop
Have you ever wondered what a workshop is or what separates a workshop from a seminar or a meeting? This is the second in a series of articles where I explore four vital components of a workshop.
Welcome back to the second in my four part series where I explore my thoughts on what makes a workshop a workshop.
In the first article, we discussed the element of “stakeholders”. In this article we'll delve into another essential ingredient of a workshop: Purpose.
Just to remind you, here is my very simple definition of a workshop:
Stakeholders, with a purpose, collaborate, guided by a facilitator.
Do you agree with my definition? What’s your definition of a workshop? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
Finding Purpose
We meet for different reasons. A birthday celebration, a wedding, dinner with friends, a music festival, a sports event. All of these have a purpose.
The purpose of a workshop is work; multiple people need to work together to agree, decide or solve something. Sometimes the desired outcome is not directly work. It could be work-related, for example designing culture or improving team work. Alternatively it might just be to connect and have fun together. Our purpose is likely layered but is primarily, a need to grow and experience something together. In the workshop, we work together to achieve that purpose.
In addition to problem solving, other examples of purposes for a workshop could be knowledge transfer, coaching or team building. These are the baseline settings, so you’ll need to ask a bunch of why’s to uncover the value and importance before you can design an experience that will fit the need.
Purpose in Practice
A while back, a top level manager came to me with a challenge. We were having some issues with the maintenance and supply of a highly technical, bespoke piece of equipment. He explained to me quite clearly his purpose for involving me was: to get a range of cross functional stakeholders from within higher levels of management to think a bit differently about this challenge.
We can normally distill the primary focus pretty quickly, but I always ask explicitly: Is there something specific you want the group to experience or achieve?
In this example, the other reasons to gather were to hopefully shift participant assumptions and beliefs, catalyze a change in behavior and make inroads on solving some complex problems.
I will also speak to participants before a workshop. Sometimes all of them, sometimes just a few. In this case, after the initial chat with the challenge owner, I spoke to some of the stakeholders, to get a feeling for where they all were. This helped me understand what I could expect and figure out a game plan for the workshop.
Discovery Conversations
In individual conversations my aim is to gain understanding of this one person’s perspective, get an insight into the team dynamic and to build a rapport with them. I’ll start these conversations with some small talk and a short introduction to the topic and the challenge at hand. I’m using all my social antenna to make them feel comfortable. I’m curious to hear from them and am grateful that they have taken time to talk with me.
What I’m looking for is some understanding of the group dynamic and a glimpse at the thoughts they have around the subject matter. I will ask open ended questions and usually uncover some common ground and a clear idea about what they are hoping to achieve. When I did this with this group, I discovered that they all had different ideas about, firstly whether this was a problem or not and secondly how to solve it.
What to Ask and Why
When we get down to business, here are a few examples of the types of questions I like to ask and why I ask them.
Tell me about your thoughts on this challenge
This is a good opener to leave it wide open for the interviewee to spill all the beans. I’m curious to know what angle they will take, what perspective they have. The trick is to keep digging with follow-up open-ended questions like: tell me more, or I’m curious to learn more about…
I’m curious to know what you think might stand in the way of making any progress?
What kind of blockers do they have and what blockers do the group experience? It’s handy to know what we’re overcoming and we might need to include a specific exercise to identify and talk about blockers.
Do you already have ideas for solutions?
This is a good one to understand how far along people are with their thoughts. However, it’s important not to let pre-formed solutions dictate the outcome. Here’s where you can be mindful of asking critical questions in the workshop to ensure the group is finding common ground. It’s also interesting to gage individual mindsets and be aware of how they shift during or after the workshop.
What would be a good outcome for the workshop?
When they answer this, you have your ticket to identifying the kind of workshop this needs to be. It’s informative to know how they think things should move forward after the workshop too. What would be the next steps?
Tell me about any trouble makers in the group.
Now I’m looking to uncover where I need to watch out for potential trouble and have some tactics ready to deal with it. Trouble makers are mostly those who feel unheard or misunderstood. They are likely problematic because they have a strong view and aren’t listened to. So, if I know who they are, I will be able to give that person an extra slice of time and a couple of inquisitive questions. By doing this, as a neutral party, that person has an opportunity to feel heard. That might be all it takes for everyone else to suddenly understand them a bit better or even get onboard with their ideas.
Now we have a real sense for what the challenge is. As a facilitator we are also now equipped with additional insights which will help us guide the group. With the penultimate question on my list answered we should be in good shape to define key outputs and outcomes for the workshop.
Purpose Becomes a Guide for Workshop Design
Let’s get back to the workshop I led where the purpose was: to get a range of cross functional stakeholders from within higher levels of management to think a bit differently about a specialist equipment challenge. The individuals all had different ideas, firstly about whether this was a problem or not and secondly how to solve it. They needed to be exposed to each others opinions and thoughts, and align on a direction that would improve operational efficiency.
I would need to allow time for sharing of ideas, time to digest others ideas and time to think on what is important. The group also needed a structure to develop and communicate their ideas effectively and inclusively. With a commercial goal also at stake, I included prioritization and decision making activities.
There are so many possibilities of outputs and outcomes for a workshop. Here are a few, just to give you a feel for the range.
Outputs: a problem has been defined, ideas have been generated, a decision is made, a concept has been scoped out, a roadmap, sketch, prototype, pitch, plan or blueprint have been created.
Outcomes: behavior, opinions or perspectives have changed, a common understanding has been built, camaraderie, empathy, bonding has happened. People have experienced personal and group growth.
When we know what we are trying to achieve, we have the foundations for designing an effective workshop. In the next article in this series we look at how we structure collaboration in a workshop. Later in the series we’ll look at the role of the facilitator.
Purposeful Outcomes
You’re probably a bit curious to know how this workshop ended up. In addition to some good conversations, we identified eight separate initiatives. The challenge owner remarked on how behavior changed after the workshop. Participants had shifted their thinking, took more ownership and started working towards the same goal back in their teams. One participant told me that having heard other perspectives he had been humbled and had moved away from his initial solution ideas.
If you like what you read here, I’d love to hear from you. Who are you? What have I written here that you connect with? What would you like to read more about?
Top Tip
When having those first discovery conversations make sure you are using open ended questions and, through curiosity, uncovering the real reasons people will want to participate. Be sure to listen a lot more than you talk.
Thank you for visiting my blog. Stay tuned for more posts, hit the subscribe button and feel free to reach out with any questions or topics you’d like me to cover.
Stay curious
Warm wishes
Kat